True North by L.E. Sterling

Author:L.E. Sterling
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Dystopian;futuristic;X-Men;mutations;The Selection;Alexandra Bracken;C.J. Redwine
Publisher: Entangled Publishing, LLC
Published: 2017-02-22T05:00:00+00:00

12

Christopher E.J. Turner is a man who doesn’t forget debts.

His is the presidential suite for the duration of the voyage—or his life, whichever comes to an end first. All around him is the kind of ornate luxury that I’ve grown up with. But here, surrounding the doomed man in white, the room’s luxuries take on the character of an overstuffed mausoleum. There’s a smallish bedside table edged in gilt. Its surface is cluttered with pretty junk: an antique clock, a vase of freshly cut flowers, a tissue-box cover made of gold. Small painted vases, which I recognize as some very expensive pieces, fine gold-edged china, priceless figurines. My mother, I think to myself without humor, would love this.

Turner is too sick to leave his bed, so we’ve come to him. His longish brown hair, streaked with gray, fans comfortably over his pillows on the oversize cabin bed, making his long, thick nose seem more prominent. He’s sweating and gray, a faint sheen of whiskers settling over his hollowed cheeks. But with a pair of thick, impressive eyebrows framing eyes shining with intelligence, even sick Turner has the look of a scholar.

“Sit,” he tells me, eyeing the two men behind me. “We meet again. Only this time I’m awake.” He calls casually to the brutishly large merc with the piercing blue eyes who’d let us in. “Marcus, can you fetch everyone a drink?”

Something of my surprise must show, because Turner just laughs. “Marcus is more than just a merc to me. He’s my right hand.” He winks, and a flash of bright white teeth appears in the man’s mouth.

He’s still the man in white, though. This afternoon he’s dressed in a white T-shirt with off-white lounge pants. His arms are covered in liver spots, though he’s too young for those. Those arms seem oddly naked without long sleeves, too vulnerable. But it’s his eyes I can’t bear.

Even when he smiles, as he does now, Turner’s dark-navy eyes look out at me with an odd hope that makes me itch.

I smile my most polite, most distant smile. “Your mer— Marcus,” I correct myself swiftly, “mentioned you wanted to see us.” Just then Marcus appears with a tray of lemonades in thick, frosty glasses fleshed out with green. He eyes the man in bed, one eyebrow arching up as if to say, Are you behaving yourself? Marcus doesn’t say anything as he hands out the glasses to Ali, Jared, and me.

Not just your average Upper Circler, then. Christopher E.J. Turner is the real deal. Lemons and fresh herbs are worth their weight in gold. And onboard a ship? From some sort of personal stock? I can’t imagine the astronomical fortune behind this man.

I take one of those glasses and breathe in the delicate scents of lemons, sugar, mint. Taste the cold on my tongue, the bittersweet burn in my mouth. I don’t realize I’ve closed my eyes until I open them again to see Christopher Turner watching me closely.

“Just a small thank-you,” he tells me earnestly.

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